


baby you were battle born

by superstarrgirl



Category: Captain America (Movies)
Genre: F/M, Great Depression, enjoy my ridiculous ramblings, kind of relationship between clint and nat but suuuuuuper minor, mentions of PTSD and war
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-08-16
Updated: 2015-08-16
Packaged: 2018-04-15 00:17:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death, No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,161
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/4585707
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/superstarrgirl/pseuds/superstarrgirl
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>‘steve.’ peggy murmurs in his dreams, perfectly manicured hands reaching out, clutching his palm. ‘the war is over. we can go home.’ </p>
<p>‘war,’ he whispers back, throat hoarse and words like bullets. ‘is never over.’</p>
            </blockquote>





	baby you were battle born

**Author's Note:**

> so here you go! this is a bit of a mess (as most of my previous things have been) but i really quite like the writing style that i used! it also ends a bit awkwardly, and you can really put in any relationships you like. 
> 
> enjoy!

nat calls it ptsd (post-traumatic-stress-disorder) and says that there’s no cure for it.

 

he can’t sleep more than three hours – he’s seeing faces – hearing voices – feeling people around him who shouldn’t be there. bucky colors his dreams bright russian red, paints his scars metallic silver.

 

_i just want this to be over_ , he whispers, watching as nat folds forward like a paper doll blown in the wind.

 

_i want to fix this, captain_ , she tells him. _i want to fix_ you.

 

{the ‘you can’t fix a broken toy’ is left unspoken.}

 

there are moments where he flinches at too-loud sounds, where he flinches when someone moves too fast. nat watches, slips her hand into his, whispers quietly _everything is fine you’re safe everything is fine you’re safe_.

 

70 years and he still doesn’t believe it.

 

brooklyn’s changed, and he hates it. it’s sky rises and apartment buildings and gangs of boys down dark alleys with nothing better to do with their time. it’s not the brooklyn he left --

 

(it’s not the life he left)

 

he wants to do more than this, and maybe that’s his problem. he’s running around like fury’s scapegoat, like he’s got a target painted on his back, like he’s a wild animal and everyone is just _waiting_ for the kill-shot.

 

( _back when steve was young, curled up in bed with a rattle in his lungs from the winter, bucky would crawl beside him and they’d talk about lives they’d live outside brooklyn._

_‘we’ll move to the real city – we’ll move to the upper east side and get an apartment near central park, promise, stevie. promise.’_

_‘we’ll be able to afford a car.’ steve used to say, wishful thinking coloring his tone. ‘imagine that, buck. a real car.’_

_bucky would laugh, cocoon himself around steve – the closest thing they could afford to heating in the years before the war – and whisper, ‘yeah, stevie. imagine that.’)_

peggy dies peacefully in her sleep, steve’s pocket watch clutched close to her chest.

 

agent 13 hugs steve at the funeral and slips the watch into his palm.

 

‘aunt peg would have wanted you to have that,’ she whispers, tears streaking her pale face.

 

‘i didn’t know you were her family.’ he tells sharon, not daring to look at the watch. he couldn’t bear it.

 

‘she was my aunt.’ she murmurs. she glances over her shoulder at the image of peggy, smiling with her hair perfectly coiled and her lips a dangerous red.

 

(finest dame this side of the mississipp, bucky said, laughing when steve jabbed him but didn’t deny it)

 

‘but in the end,’ sharon continues, looking down to the pocket watch. ‘i think all she really thought she had was you. maybe she was right.’

 

( _she was all i had too_ )

 

( _please don’t take her from me as well)_

( _please)_

after the service, he stumbles to peggy’s grave and drops to his knees, arms held out to catch himself. ‘i’m so sorry, peggy.’ he whispers, each word punctuated by a sob. ‘i’m so sorry – i wanted this, i wanted us. please forgive me.’

 

_i’m so proud of you, captain_ , he hears her whisper. he hears her, feels her. _the man you have become is a man worth being proud of._

 

‘captain,’ nat whispers, falling into the dirt beside him. ‘cap, it’s time to go.’

 

steve traces the words  
  _margaret ‘peggy’ anne carter  
mother, daughter, wife, sister, friend_

he wants to scratch h-e-r-o into the headstone, so that everyone who walks past this grave knows they’re walking by one, knows that they’re walking by the only person who knew how to keep her shit together when life got rough.

 

‘did you love her?’ natasha asks that night, a little more than tipsy with her red hair a mess and her green eyes bright. ‘peggy carter, did you love her?’

 

_it’s not a simple answer_ , he tries to answer. the words get stuck in his throat and burn on his tongue. _more than i’ve ever loved anybody._

 

‘i don’t know.’ he says in response, watching as nat orders another vodka and tosses it back. ‘i think i might have…’

 

‘given the time,’ nat finishes. and then she presses a glass into his hand and he doesn’t question it.

 

the alcohol burns on the way down. he likes to pretend it means he’s getting drunk.

 

he likes to pretend it means he’s not a soldier anymore.

 

‘did you love clint?’ he asks with just enough alcohol in him to feel buzzed – _that’s all he ever gets, this feeling of dangling over a precipice but not quite able to let go_.

 

nat flinches and fingers the arrow hanging around her neck. she’s kept it close to her for years, but steve’s only now noticing it. ‘i think,’ she whispers. her voice breaks. ‘i think i did.’

 

he imagines that conversation, imagines clint bursting into nat’s room and announcing _laura_ and how she made him _feel_. he imagines nat, sitting on her bed, a smile plastered to her face and the sinking feeling that she’d never measure up to anything like this _laura_.

 

‘and i think he loved me too. but maybe that’s just wishful thinking.’

 

steve scoots his barstool closer and orders two more shots. ‘when i joined s.h.i.e.l.d the first time.’ he murmurs, taking her hand and wrapping it around the shot glass. ‘after barton’s cognitive recalibration or whatever you called it.’

 

nat laughs shakily, and it’s the closest thing steve’s ever seen to tears. _this is good_ , he thinks. _she’s human, somewhere under there_.

 

‘the way he was looking at you, nat. the way he looks at you now. the way he looked at you when he finally got you back in his arms. i think that he’s always loved you.’

 

she glances up, squeezing his fingers. he breathes in deeply, and then leans in and presses his lips to the shell of her ear.

 

‘i think it’s always been you.’

 

nat smiles, flutters her eyelashes. for a moment, she looks like peggy. ‘i know.’ she whispers.

 

she does, and that breaks steve’s heart. he doesn’t know why.

 

( _yes, he does, because he knows that look. that wishful thinking, that_ this might be it this might be it he might be it _. he knows because he was there – he knows because he’s there now._

_but he hasn’t quite reached that point yet._

_he’ll get there. promise.)_

 

he was twenty years old when war broke out – bucky left a year later. he took with him all that steve really had left.

 

an empty house and two coffins side-by-side don’t really count as too much.

 

(may 8th, 1945 – the world holds its breath as germany surrenders and steve rogers freezes)

 

_and yet – the world burns_

(‘steve.’ peggy murmurs in his dreams, perfectly manicured hands reaching out, clutching his palm. ‘the war is over. we can go home.’

 

‘war,’ he whispers back, throat hoarse and words like bullets. ‘is never over.’)


End file.
